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Poynter’s Design Desk prompted me to take a look at Steven Heller and his ideas about decoration and design. The picture to the left helped illustrate an article of his in the January/February edition of STEP magazine (sub. req.)“Decoration plays an integral role in the total design scheme. It is not merely wallpaper. Good decoration […]

Well, I’d just finished writing about marketing in India and China when the latest Wharton newsletter came through my virtual mail slot, including a book review for C. K. Prahalad‘s latest: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits. Prahalad argues that multinational companies not only can make money selling to […]

Bit of a marketing trend here, isn’t there? AdAge notes that the Brazilian National Self-Regulation Council’s new ban on “erotic exploitation” in beer ads is prompting brewers and their marketing firms to “find a new creative vocabulary beyond breasts and bare bellies.” Here’s an example of the new advertising being generated for Molson’s Kaiser beer […]

Following on yesterday’s comments about P&G marketing – you don’t have to be a consumer goods behemoth to explore new marketing tactics. You don’t even have to be in the largest consumer economy on earth. As P&G and other marketers keep emphasizing, you need the best information available. You have to research the customer, their […]

Over at Engage, Greg’s focused on Proctor & Gamble’s continuing quest for measurable results and effective techniques in marketing and advertising. He was prompted to comment by Jeff Jarvis, who in turn was spinning off a recent speech by P&G’s global marketing officer. The speech has a lot of self-congratulation. It makes some broad generalizations. […]

Over at Engage, Greg’s focused on Proctor & Gamble’s continuing quest for measurable results and effective techniques in marketing and advertising. He was prompted to comment by Jeff Jarvis, who in turn was spinning off a recent speech by P&G’s global marketing officer. The speech has a lot of self-congratulation. It makes some broad generalizations. […]

A column in the Guardian makes an interesting point about Ebay as social network AND reputation managment tool: EBay does something no other network has done: it treats the social network as the supply-chain and by building systems of communications and reputation management into the network, turns a group of individuals into an organised, structured […]

Roy Greenslade at Media Guardian has a handy cheat sheet on the different levels of sophistication, knowledge and insight accorded to anonymous informants, including: * An insider – someone who hopes to know enough, one day, to be a source. * A friend – the celebrity’s PR. * A close friend – the celebrity.

Richard Branson is a master publicist and skilled marketer. He has built several Virgin companies on a number of continents, each a brand to be reckoned with in its industry. In the past, he has ballooned around the world (in a giant Virgin balloon, of course), went skydiving, dressed up as a bride and took […]

but what is Ralph Nader’s problem? Sure, he’s right to criticize the corporate and political interests that seem to dominate inside-the-beltway decision-making. Sure, there are thousands of disenchanted and disenfranchised voters who would scream for meaningful change. But that doesn’t mean you should throw your hat in the ring if all it will accomplish is […]

When the new Economic Report of the President came out this week, questions were raised whether fast-food restaurants needed to be reclassified. At the moment, they are considered part of the service sector. But is the collection, assembly and distribution of Big Macs really a manufacturing job? The White House thought this question important enough […]

As I was chopping my face up with a three blade razor this morning, I had a moment of self-criticism: am I a stupid enough consumer that I fall for marketing gimmicks like lubricating strips, patented blade protectors or ergonomic handles? Yes. As are most men. Which is why the appearance this week of two […]

In Stalin’s time, shunned Communist Party apparatchiks and countless others disappeared into horrific forced labor camps in the east of Russia, many in Siberia. Just over a year ago, the Director of Communications for the Prime Minister of Canada was forced to resign after being caught referring to George Bush as a “moron” during a […]

The codfish lays a thousand eggs The homely hen lays one. The codfish never cackles To tell you what she’s done. And so we scorn the codfish While the humble hen we prize Which only goes to show you That it pays to advertize. – a little rhyme from a biography of cod I’ve been […]

Jan Miner, the actress who played Madge the Manicurist in 27 years’ worth of Palmolive dish soap ads, died this week. Dave Winer blogged about her two years ago. Never ending on a down note, here is the Bugs Bunny “manicurist” skit.

The signs have been around for a while. The breakup of the old-school AT&T. The renaming of Bell Labs. The gradual rebranding of the Baby Bells. The last remnant of the old behemoth, AT&T Corp., is now trying to publicize its transformation from a telephone company to the industry’s leading provider of communications services and […]

The new Yankelovich Youth survey is out today. Its’ assessment of “Echo Boomers” – kids aged 12-17 – reveals that their trust of advertising in all formats is declining. Especially intriguing, considering this group’s daily use of electronic media and connected appliances like PDAs and text pagers, is the finding that “echo boomers” trust internet […]

Dana points to a very useful tool – the “e-bore-meter, a global peer-to-peer i-poll.” Test your responses to these questions: If you lose access to your electronic diary, do you have no idea what you’re supposed to be doing? When you lose your Internet connection at work, do you think you might as well go […]

Bit of a crisis up here in Canada. Turns out some federal politicians and bureaucrats may have “skimmed a little off the top” when processing invoices for advertising and event sponsorship deals. But at least one federal Minister has called it like he sees it: … Stephen Owen, “who earned a Mr. Clean image while […]

What happened? I thought things were going well. We met every day, then all of the sudden he up and disappears! Like I was never there. Like we didn’t have a connection! Like we didn’t know each other! Like there was never a “special” thing between us! Is it me? No, no, no! It’s not […]